Syracuse hospital fights its top doctors for $1.3 million windfall

St. Joseph’s Hospital is fighting with some of its most prominent doctors over a $1.3 million windfall from the sale of New York’s biggest medical malpractice insurance company.

A subsidiary of billionaire investor Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Co. – MLMIC for short — last fall for $2.5 billion. Because MLMIC was a customer-owned mutual company, the proceeds of the sale must be divvied up statewide among its policyholders – doctors, nurses and other medical providers or their designees.